NCIS and its sibling NCIS: Los Angeles are the top-rated dramas on television, a distinction they have held for several years. Next season there will be a third iteration, which ones hopes will be titled NCIS: Spinoff. As Quartz’s Jason Lynch notes, viewers love these formulaic procedurals—while critics ignore them.

But what exactly are so many Americans watching—and rooting for—when they tune in for these TV shows? A closer look reveals that both series are uncomfortably akin to a cheering section for the NSA: The shows depict a world in which terrorists planning mass slaughter are under every bed, in which viewers root for the good-looking, wisecracking agents to smash down doors without warrants; in which super-advanced electronic surveillance is used exclusively to protect the public. In the NCIS version of reality, we’ll all die unless powerful government agencies treat the United States Constitution like a big joke.

Related Story

Of course primetime TV is rich in galimatias: Wacky sitcoms are hardly realism, and virtually all action programming overstates the frequency of violent crime. That crime is in steady decline simply isn’t mentioned on procedurals like Hawaii Five-0 and the Law & Order franchise, which depict homicide at runaway levels. Primetime dramas also exaggerate the use of firearms. In the actual NYPD, 1 officer in 800 fired at a suspect in 2012; on TV, the streets of New York City are as bullet-ridden as the Wild West. Procedurals further overstate the chance of criminals being caught: A disturbing number of real crimes never are solved, while in primetime, as the top of the hour approaches, the cell door slams behind the villain. Viewers long have clicked on the tube to entertainment in which crime is rampant, gunfire echoes down the mean streets, and bad guys always get what’s coming to them.

But the subliminals are shifting. A generation ago, network crime dramas featured private detectives who were lone outsiders, like The Rockford Files’ Rockford, or For Hire’s Spenser. Post 9/11, audiences seem to prefer heroes with government authority. Federal agents based in secret facilities, elite crime-fighting units with extralegal powers, fantastical technology, and commando-team backup are everywhere on primetime.

The NCIS siblings take this one step further by placing the entire nation in jeopardy on a regular basis. The two shows have offered numerous plots involving weapons of mass destruction in the hands of lavishly financed Iranian, Pakistani, or Russian evildoers. (Odd that the shows don’t roll out Saudi evildoers, given most of the 9-11 mass murderers were Saudi nationals; though, in the NCIS universe, Romania is often depicted as a fountainhead of maniacal terrorists.) NCIS Los Angeles had an arc in which well-dressed bad guys with generic foreign accents seized three atomic bombs left over from the Cold War; another in which the deranged were racing through L.A. with a bioweapon that could “kill everyone west of the Mississippi in 48 hours.”

On 'NCIS,' info often comes from a tech staffer who can tap into any cell phone or video feed in mere seconds, never needing a password or a judge’s permission.

How are these calamities prevented? Electronic surveillance. A sinister Pakistani terrorist has an accomplice in Washington, D.C. A super-advanced surveillance device takes mere seconds to locate the accomplice and determine he is on the way to the Norfolk airport. (When he arrives, Washington-based NCIS agents are already present, disguised as airline employees—how they could get there first is never explained, but that’s a standard plot hole.) The well-dressed guys with the atomic bombs are tracked across Los Angeles by technology that apparently can detect fake accents from outer space. The woman with the bioweapon passes a closed-circuit security camera, and instantly the agents know her location.

On NCIS, info often comes from a particular tech staffer who can tap into any cell phone or video feed in mere seconds, never needing a password and never pausing for a judge’s permission. (She dresses Goth; she’s no Oliver North!) NCIS Los Angeles features two cool young techies who operate a never-explained super-computer that requires mere seconds to pinpoint any vaguely Middle Eastern-seeming person anywhere in the Golden State. Then the agents declare that if they have to stop to get a search warrant, the innocent will die.

In the setup of the shows, viewers have seen the bad guys doing something malicious, and so know they are guilty. Who cares about the rights of the guilty! But in reality, law-enforcement officers rarely are sure about guilt; nobody can be certain until a judge or jury speaks. By first showing the primetime audience an awful terrorist scheming to slaughter the innocent, then showing valorous agents who can stop the terrorist only by trampling the Bill of Rights, audiences are induced to think, “Listen in without a warrant! Break down the door! That’s justice!”

In this respect, it’s somewhat spooky that NCIS Los Angeles is sponsored by Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest military manufacturer. As the credits roll, "Promotional consideration furnished by Lockheed Martin" appears in tiny type. Lockheed Martin does not market any consumer products—watching NCIS Los Angeles cannot inspire anyone to log onto Amazon and purchase an F-35 strike fighter. Yet the firm underwrites the show, which makes itself seem hip with references to NPR and gay rights, then offers plotlines in which advanced wiretap technology is good for the public. For car companies to have product placements in detective drama is one thing; for military contractors to underwrite programming that lauds Big Brother tactics is another.

The NCIS twins aren’t the only primetime shows that glamorize electronic surveillance. Person of Interest, often in the Nielsen top 10, concerns an imaginary super-computer that fuses all data from all the world’s devices, then directs the heroes to places where the innocent are imperiled. “The machine sees everything,” the intro intones. And is used solely for good! Intelligence, a new primetime series, concerns a secret agent with an imaginary chip planted in his head. The chip fuses all data from all the world’s devices, allowing the agent to stop terrorist attacks. And, similarly, it’s used solely for good! As the credits roll after Intelligence, a message appears onscreen: PROMOTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS PROVIDED BY MICROSOFT.

Of course television studios have an unceasing need to pump out programming; what would really be scary is if bad guys from an NCIS episode got their hands on a MacGuffin generator. And plots in which imaginary technology saves the day have been on the tube since The Man From UNCLE half a century ago. But in today’s political climate, why does Hollywood seem so enthusiastic about promoting the notion that the innocent have nothing to fear from Fourth Amendment violations and ubiquitous electronic surveillance?

Most Popular

His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.

Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap.

The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set of The Glenn Beck Program, which airs on Beck’s website, theblaze.com. On the way, we passed through a life-size replica of the Oval Office as it might look if inhabited by a President Beck, complete with a portrait of Ronald Reagan and a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout.

Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.

During residency, Iworked hospital shifts that could last 36 hours, without sleep, often without breaks of more than a few minutes. Even writing this now, it sounds to me like I’m bragging or laying claim to some fortitude of character. I can’t think of another type of self-injury that might be similarly lauded, except maybe binge drinking. Technically the shifts were 30 hours, the mandatory limit imposed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, but we stayed longer because people kept getting sick. Being a doctor is supposed to be about putting other people’s needs before your own. Our job was to power through.

The shifts usually felt shorter than they were, because they were so hectic. There was always a new patient in the emergency room who needed to be admitted, or a staff member on the eighth floor (which was full of late-stage terminally ill people) who needed me to fill out a death certificate. Sleep deprivation manifested as bouts of anger and despair mixed in with some euphoria, along with other sensations I’ve not had before or since. I remember once sitting with the family of a patient in critical condition, discussing an advance directive—the terms defining what the patient would want done were his heart to stop, which seemed likely to happen at any minute. Would he want to have chest compressions, electrical shocks, a breathing tube? In the middle of this, I had to look straight down at the chart in my lap, because I was laughing. This was the least funny scenario possible. I was experiencing a physical reaction unrelated to anything I knew to be happening in my mind. There is a type of seizure, called a gelastic seizure, during which the seizing person appears to be laughing—but I don’t think that was it. I think it was plain old delirium. It was mortifying, though no one seemed to notice.

Why did Trump’s choice for national-security advisor perform so well in the war on terror, only to find himself forced out of the Defense Intelligence Agency?

How does a man like retired Lieutenant General Mike Flynn—who spent his life sifting through information and parsing reports, separating rumor and innuendo from actionable intelligence—come to promote conspiracy theories on social media?

Perhaps it’s less Flynn who’s changed than that the circumstances in which he finds himself—thriving in some roles, and flailing in others.

In diagnostic testing, there’s a basic distinction between sensitivity, or the ability to identify positive results, and specificity, the ability to exclude negative ones. A test with high specificity may avoid generating false positives, but at the price of missing many diagnoses. One with high sensitivity may catch those tricky diagnoses, but also generate false positives along the way. Some people seem to sift through information with high sensitivity, but low specificity—spotting connections that others can’t, and perhaps some that aren’t even there.

“Well, you’re just special. You’re American,” remarked my colleague, smirking from across the coffee table. My other Finnish coworkers, from the school in Helsinki where I teach, nodded in agreement. They had just finished critiquing one of my habits, and they could see that I was on the defensive.

I threw my hands up and snapped, “You’re accusing me of being too friendly? Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Well, when I greet a colleague, I keep track,” she retorted, “so I don’t greet them again during the day!” Another chimed in, “That’s the same for me, too!”

Unbelievable, I thought. According to them, I’m too generous with my hellos.

When I told them I would do my best to greet them just once every day, they told me not to change my ways. They said they understood me. But the thing is, now that I’ve viewed myself from their perspective, I’m not sure I want to remain the same. Change isn’t a bad thing. And since moving to Finland two years ago, I’ve kicked a few bad American habits.

Why the ingrained expectation that women should desire to become parents is unhealthy

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a "safe haven" law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children.

Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion.

Democrats who have struggled for years to sell the public on the Affordable Care Act are now confronting a far more urgent task: mobilizing a political coalition to save it.

Even as the party reels from last month’s election defeat, members of Congress, operatives, and liberal allies have turned to plotting a campaign against repealing the law that, they hope, will rival the Tea Party uprising of 2009 that nearly scuttled its passage in the first place. A group of progressive advocacy groups will announce on Friday a coordinated effort to protect the beneficiaries of the Affordable Care Act and stop Republicans from repealing the law without first identifying a plan to replace it.

They don’t have much time to fight back. Republicans on Capitol Hill plan to set repeal of Obamacare in motion as soon as the new Congress opens in January, and both the House and Senate could vote to wind down the law immediately after President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office on the 20th.

Trinidad has the highest rate of Islamic State recruitment in the Western hemisphere. How did this happen?

This summer, the so-called Islamic State published issue 15 of its online magazine Dabiq. In what has become a standard feature, it ran an interview with an ISIS foreign fighter. “When I was around twenty years old I would come to accept the religion of truth, Islam,” said Abu Sa’d at-Trinidadi, recalling how he had turned away from the Christian faith he was born into.

At-Trinidadi, as his nom de guerre suggests, is from the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), a country more readily associated with calypso and carnival than the “caliphate.” Asked if he had a message for “the Muslims of Trinidad,” he condemned his co-religionists at home for remaining in “a place where you have no honor and are forced to live in humiliation, subjugated by the disbelievers.” More chillingly, he urged Muslims in T&T to wage jihad against their fellow citizens: “Terrify the disbelievers in their own homes and make their streets run with their blood.”

A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions—sights, sounds, textures, tastes—are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it—or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion—we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.

The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.

You’ve likely seen the video before: a stream of kids, confronted with a single, alluring marshmallow. If they can resist eating it for 15 minutes, they’ll get two. Some do. Others cave almost immediately.

This “Marshmallow Test,” first conducted in the 1960s, perfectly illustrates the ongoing war between impulsivity and self-control. The kids have to tamp down their immediate desires and focus on long-term goals—an ability that correlates with their later health, wealth, and academic success, and that is supposedly controlled by the front part of the brain. But a new study by Alexander Soutschek at the University of Zurich suggests that self-control is also influenced by another brain region—and one that casts this ability in a different light.

A new survey suggests many might prefer a kind of multipolar Washington, with three distinct orbits of power checking each other.

Does Donald Trump have a mandate?

Though last month’s election provided Trump and his fellow Republicans unified control of the White House, House of Representatives, and Senate for the first time since 2006, the latest Allstate/Atlantic Media Heartland Monitor Poll shows the country remains closely split on many of the key policy challenges facing the incoming administration—and sharply divided on whether they trust the next president to take the lead in responding to them.

In addition, on several important choices facing the new administration and Congress, the survey found that respondents who voted for Trump supported a position that was rejected by the majority of adults overall. That contrast may simultaneously encourage Trump to press forward on an agenda that energizes his coalition, while emboldening congressional Democrats to resist him.